1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display input device provided with a display part such as a liquid crystal panel and an input part such as a touch panel, a display method of the display input device, and an image forming apparatus such as a copier, an MFP, a printer, or a fax machine, provided with the display input device.
2. Description of Related Art
For example, an image forming apparatus such as a copier or an MFP may be provided with a display input device for the purpose of performing inputting, for example, making a selection of and a setting for a function to be used. For example, the display input device is provided with: a display part of a touch panel type that displays a screen and input keys and buttons; various hard keys; etc. In the display input device, for example, the keys including the same character string may be displayed at the same time, causing erroneous pressing of the key or the like in some cases. Thus, known is the one that attempts to improve visibility upon displaying a list of a plurality of pieces of information.
Specifically, there is an information processor having: a comparison section for comparing, based on a preset comparison condition, reference information and comparison target information of a plurality of pieces of information composed of a character string; and a highlighting section for, based on a result of the comparison made by the comparison section, highlighting a part different between the reference information and the comparison target information to display a list of the plurality of pieces of information composed of a character string. This configuration makes it easy to discriminate an inconsistent section upon display of the list of the plurality of pieces of information.
With the information processor described above, the inconsistent part can be highlighted without fail. However, with this information processor, the inconsistent part is highlighted all the time. Thus, a large number of same or similar character strings within a screen results in a large number of highlighted parts. Therefore, the large number of highlighted parts relatively weakens highlighting effect, which contrarily raises a problem of difficulty in viewing.
Moreover, too many highlighted parts may have the user feel hard or annoying to see them. In other words, more highlighting than necessary is meaningless, and thus only a portion required by the user may be highlighted. Thus, the information processor described above may cause erroneous pressing of the key or the like as a result of the difficulty in viewing the screen of the display part, which leads to the problem of a possible feeling of annoyance.